


Echoes

by holdouttrout



Category: Stargate: SG-1
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-12
Updated: 2009-02-12
Packaged: 2017-10-21 20:31:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/229528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holdouttrout/pseuds/holdouttrout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's not the same person she knew, but it's not an easy thing to remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echoes

**Author's Note:**

> My thanks to [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/annerbhp/profile)[**annerbhp**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/annerbhp/), who was very reassuring and got me to make it better all at the same time.

It's three in the morning, and Sam is on her apartment couch watching television. She's used to staying up late at night working, but her new job ends at 6 every night, and there's no project for her to fiddle with, so after work she turns on the TV and tries to think about nothing. Without the TV, she ends up driving herself crazy with stacks of what-ifs, or improbable plans to get to the Stargate and _do_ something. She doesn't know where to start looking; they told the people here everything, all the usual locations. Stupid. She turns up the volume and lets her eyes glaze over again.

She's ignoring the great value she could get if she called in the next four minutes and picking at a bowl of popcorn kernels when she hears the discreet knock at her door.

She thinks it must be Cam, because Daniel would have assumed he had been followed and wouldn't bother with discreet, but she looks through the peephole and sees a ghost instead.

The door is open before she can convince herself it would be better to keep it shut.

Jack shifts awkwardly, and Sam finds it strange how many things come to mind that would be the absolutely wrong thing to say.

After a long pause she settles for "Come in," and steps back in without waiting to see if he'll follow her.

He does.

She turns off the TV and makes coffee, stamps down the urge to babble to fill the silence. She wants him to talk first. When the coffee's ready, she pours him a mug and puts in the barest hint of cream, sets it down in front of him while she gets her own. He looks at the cup and then at her as if she's grown another head.

"I don't like cream," he says.

"You _say_ you don't like cream," she retorts, afraid for a minute that it's the wrong thing to say, that maybe he'll leave and she'll never, ever see him again. She's struck by the thought that as familiar as he is, he's essentially a complete stranger to her. Everything she knows about him is erased, gone, poof.

He's still looking at the cup, tense, and then he takes a careful sip.

"You shouldn't know that."

A sharp laugh tries to slice its way out of her. Sam feels like she's made of glass, holding herself together by her fingertips and getting shredded slowly. Of all people, she _should_ know that, has seen him sneak cream into black coffee for eleven years. She started adding it herself for him one day, gauging his reaction until she got it just right. That had been a good day.

Today she shrugs, crosses her arms. "Why are you here?"

He looks everywhere except at her. "Is it--was it true?"

She doesn't have to ask to know he means Charlie. "Yes."

"God."

"That's not why you're here." She's sure of it.

Jack takes another sip of his coffee. "When you first saw me, you knew me. Knew who I was." Jack leans back, stretches out in the chair. "I still think you're insane."

Sam nods. "But."

Jack looks profoundly uncomfortable, and Sam leans back, mimicking his posture. His lips quirk up, and she starts to smile before she remembers who she isn't talking to.

She sits up. She wouldn't have thought his curiosity would get the better of him. She wonders if he's here on his own, or if he was sent to see if she'll crack. He would make a good test.

She'll fail.

"Yeah," he says, as if she's asked a question. He looks supremely unhappy, and that, strangely, cheers Sam up, makes her relax.

"You're supposed to be a general," she says, and enjoys watching him wrestle with the concept until his eyes turn dark and haunted.

"I'm supposed to have a dead son," he says, and there's nothing Sam can say to make that better. Jack leans forward. He looks tired, and old. "I can't do this."

He shoves off from the counter and crosses the hallway to her door.

"Jack--," she says. She doesn't know what's in her voice, but he turns. She takes a step back from the anger and fear in his eyes. It's an expression he doesn't wear often--doesn't let himself wear often.

"No! I can't. Not--not today."

He opens the door and turns to go. "Not ever," he says, to the door frame, and Sam knows he'll be back.

*_*_*_*_*

She walks down the cereal aisle. She catches sight of the Frootees boxes and flinches before putting one into her cart. It's become a tradition, both the flinching and the cereal--she eats them in slow bowlfuls and remembers early morning breakfasts and briefings.

She looks up and finds him watching her.

They go get coffee.

It's a new place, newer than Sam Carter returning from the dead, and it feels odd to walk in and have the knowledge of a _before_ that is the same as everyone else's, even if the people behind the counter write the wrong name on the drink cup. Sam kind of likes it this way, marvels at how quickly she got used to being someone else, somewhen else.

They sit down in the corner.

"Charlie's at school," Jack says, right away, as if he planned his angle of attack on the way here. Sam does quick math and blanches. She knows it's ten--eleven--years, but she forgets, sometimes, what that _means_.

"What's he studying?" she asks, neutral, watches Jack let go of his cup, sit back in the chair a little bit.

"Engineering, he thinks." Jack's lips turn up in a half-smile, one Sam bets he doesn't realize he's letting through. "Doesn't get that from me."

Sam can't look at this Jack. He's happy, and she wants to take that away.

"I saw the tapes," he says. He probably wasn't supposed to, but he always did have a way of getting around the rules. "There's nothing wrong with the way things are."

Sam's temper flares and her certainty returns. " _Everything_ is wrong."

Jack stills, his anger coming back to the surface. "We're _fine_."

Sam leans her weight on her forearms. "I don't know exactly what happened, but whatever it was, it changed the whole _world_. To this. It's not an accident--something's coming."

"Then why are we still here?"

Sam regards him silently for a moment, the sounds of the coffee shop around her so completely normal that it's hard to believe her own words. Still, she knows she's right. She chooses her words carefully.

"The Jack O'Neill I know wouldn't bury his head in the sand."

His jaw tightens. He doesn't speak to her as he gets up and walks out of the store. Sam doesn't watch him go. She's sick at herself. He has a life, a son, and she's there, saying it's not worth it, that they need to fix what went wrong.

She gets up, tosses her empty cup in the trash. She doesn't even know what "fixing it" means.

*_*_*_*_*

She wakes from a deep sleep, from a dream of her old house, feeling like she's missing something vital.

There's a series of knocks at her door, and Sam figures it's been going for a while. She climbs out of bed, her heart still racing. She turns on a light in the living room as an afterthought, looks briefly before opening the door.

"You said 'know,'" Jack accuses.

Sam rubs at her eyes. "What?"

"You said, 'The Jack O'Neill I _know_ ,' not 'knew.' You don't know me."

She's too tired, and she doesn't manage to look away fast enough.

Jack goes completely still.

She tries to change the subject. "They'll come. They're very patient, but--"

"How long?"

Sam's throat closes up. "I don't know when they--"

"Not that. Us." He shakes his head, corrects himself. "You. And him."

Sam wonders why he's asking. "Does it matter?" He gives her a look, and she grimaces. "A while."

They're still standing right inside the door, too close. He smells exactly the same.

"You died," she says. "Right before everything changed--or right after. I'm not sure. I wasn't thinking straight when we got here. If I had been--" she laughs, but there's no humor left in her. "Well, we would have shut up a lot sooner." She looks him in the eye, "We wouldn't be having this conversation."

"You really are that arrogant, aren't you?"

She has no response to that, but it doesn't matter, because he's kissing her. He's still a little angry, but it wouldn't be the first time, and she can't--he tastes the same, and he presses a hand to just the right spot, just like he did the first time--she can't manage to feel guilty enough to stop this.

Instead, she pulls at his shirt, sucks at his skin, drags him to her bedroom. This is so much easier than talking to him. There are no contradictions here between what she knows and remembers, even thought she thinks there maybe should be, that maybe she's just forgotten what it really felt like, with him. This was the newest part of their relationship, after all, and in some ways the smallest.

She's frayed enough, conflicted enough, that she doesn't quite come, but it doesn't matter. He always sleeps, after, and she lets herself be fooled into sleep, too, drifting off to the sound of his deep, even breathing.

*_*_*_*_*

She doesn't expect him to be there when she wakes up, and he doesn't disappoint. She makes herself coffee before work and wonders if he's still married.

It should bother her that she doesn't know, but it bothers her more that the idea makes her jealous. She wonders if she can get any more fucked up.

She volunteered at the library while she was getting her bearings in the city, and a job opened up almost right away. She feels a little better surrounded by books, as if she's constantly picking her way through Daniel's office, about to ask him if he's finished a translation yet. It's not hard work, but it's quiet, and the other workers leave her alone.

She's just leaving the building when her phone rings. She digs it out of her purse and answers without checking the display.

"How long have you been watching me?" she asks, going back into her bag for her keys.

There's a beat of silence, then, "Ask me."

Sam's got her keys, now, but she's stopped walking. She looks up at the sky, scans it automatically. She sighs into the phone. "I--Jack."

His voice is tense, and she can practically see his white knuckles clenched around the phone. "Ask me to help you."

Sam goes cold. He could, she knows. He has contacts, and, more importantly, he has access. Or can get it.

She swallows, shoves down her conscience. "Help us," she says, the words burning. It's the wrong thing to say, on so many levels.

Jack laughs, sharp and brittle, as if he can't believe she actually said it. She knows the feeling.

She has no right to be angry, she knows, but it's just so _wrong_. "He'll die anyway," she pleads. She regrets it the moment she hears the words out loud, but it's too late. The silence on the other end of the line freezes, or maybe that's just her stomach, settling into cold, hard guilt.

"Fuck you," he says, and she deserves that, so she hangs up, tucks the phone back into her bag, and goes home.

*_*_*_*_*

She wishes she could talk to Daniel about what she's doing. She wouldn't be able to tell Cam at all, but with Daniel the words would squeeze themselves out, and she thinks that he'd probably forgive her before she was even done talking. It's impossible to imagine telling Jack, her Jack. She tries to see it as a betrayal and can't quite manage it. It's a coping mechanism. It's still him. The excuses ring a little hollow, but she can't demolish them.

It's weeks before she hears from Jack again, and when he does show up, soaking wet from the storm outside, she's actually a little surprised. They have sex in her entryway. Afterward, Sam remembers to look at his hands. There's no impression from a ring, and she feels absurdly relieved.

He catches her looking, of course, and his jaw tightens.

"She died three years ago," he says. "Car crash."

Sam closes her eyes against the irony, breathes deep. She notices that she's lying on her bag and then that they look ridiculous, sprawled out like this. She gets up and goes to her room, retrieves her bathrobe. When she comes back out, Jack has his boxers on and is in the kitchen, starting a pot of coffee.

"That's becoming a habit," she says, and leans against the doorframe.

He grunts, reaches up and grabs two mugs from the cupboard without searching, as if he's been in her kitchen before. It's unnerving, and Sam goes to get the cream from the fridge to have something to do. He hands her a mug and then they stand silently before the coffee maker.

Sam turns the mug around in her hand. The coffee maker emits a strange sputtering noise. Jack jerks his head up, and Sam can't help the little laugh that escapes.

"It's done that since I bought it," she says. "I've tried to fix it three times, but--" she shrugs.

A ghost of a smile crosses Jack's face. "And you're the expert with alien technology?"

She smiles. "Earth's finest," she says.

Jack looks back at her with the half-smile that says he's genuinely amused, the one she's always, always liked. It feels like forgiveness.

The coffee maker clicks off, and Jack pours them both a cup. Sam adds the cream, and their truce lasts into the living room, dark with the windows open to the nighttime street below. After a moment of hesitation, Jack takes Sam's hand and tugs her onto the couch next to him. They stay like that until the sky lightens over the rooftops.

"I have work today," Sam offers, and Jack hums into her shoulder. Sam cranes her neck so she can look into his face. "Where are you supposed to be?"

"I'm on my way there," he says, and that's the only explanation he offers. Sam knows she shouldn't expect anything else, but it's another reminder of the difference between what was and what is. She frowns and gets up.

With a sigh, Jack follows, popping his back as he stretches. Sam takes the mugs back into the kitchen, rinses them out and puts them into the dishwasher. When she comes back into the living room, Jack's tying his shoe. She hadn't noticed before, but he's wearing these worn-out sneakers, the same ones he had in her garage.

"I'm still not going to help you," he says. He finishes the knot with a sharp tug and stands. He sounds like he's giving her an order. She's not sure what expression she gives him, but his eyes go cold.

She ends up nodding, more than a little confused by this whole...thing, by what he wants. She's afraid to ask, because she thinks she doesn't want it to stop. She's still searching his eyes for clues, and he softens, suddenly. He crosses to her, traces along her temples and cheeks, and kisses her. That's when she knows it's already over. She squeezes her eyes shut and holds onto his shoulders, pulls him into her.

It's not nearly enough. He pulls back, drops his hand, and turns before the tears start pricking at Sam's eyes.

He doesn't look around again, just leaves. Sam locks the door behind him and rests her forehead against the wood, listening to him walk down the hall. He takes the stairs down to the first floor, and she hears the front door open and slam behind him.

*_*_*_*_*

She goes through her new routines now without thinking about what she's doing. She's even given up trying to come up with backup plans--she figures she's done just about as much planning as she can, anyway, without knowing anything about what's going on with the Stargate, or out in the galaxy.

She's putting more Frootees into her trunk when she hears the death glider, and the first emotion she feels isn't fear.

It's hope.


End file.
